A recent poll out of New Hampshire seems to suggest that, among voters in the Granite State, President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are in a statistical tie for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
As reported by Breitbart, the poll from the University of New Hampshire puts DeSantis at 39 percent, with President Trump at 37 percent, well within the margin of error. In a very distant third, former Vice President Mike Pence garnered just 9 percent of the vote, and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley received just 6 percent.
In the poll’s two general election matchups, DeSantis received 47 percent to Joe Biden’s 46 percent, while Biden received 50 percent when matched up with Trump, who received 43 percent. The poll also showed massive disapproval ratings for both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris; Biden scored an approval rating of just 26 percent and a disapproval rating of 56 percent (a net approval rating of -30), while Harris received just 23 percent approval and 64 percent disapproval (a -41 net rating).
According to the poll, DeSantis’ support in New Hampshire, often the first primary state in every presidential election cycle, has “more than doubled since October.” Back then, 43 percent of New Hampshire voters chose Trump while only 18 percent chose DeSantis.
“Trump slipping in pre-primary polls is part of a typical pattern,” Andrew Smith, Director of the UNH Survey Center, said in response to the poll’s findings. “A party’s losing candidate in the prior election is typically the best-known person in their party. As the primary gets close, new candidates emerge and attract more media attention, and therefore more voter attention, than the losing candidate from the previous election.”
But President Trump has proven to be an exception to historical trends, as the 45th president remains widely popular among the Republican Party’s base after the 2020 election. Since he left office and multiple crises under Joe Biden have only gotten worse, Trump’s approval ratings have increased, and polls now show that he is more likely to beat Biden in a rematch in 2024.
Neither Trump nor DeSantis have made their 2024 intentions clear, though the former has repeatedly teased that he will most likely mount a third bid for the presidency. DeSantis is up for re-election in Florida this year, with polls overwhelmingly favoring him to defeat any of his Democratic opponents.